Avian taxonomists covering the "tropics" of Central/South America have it bad, as do those in southeast Asia. These are areas where the quantity and diversity of species is awesomely mind-numbing, helped not one wit by subtleties in variety that thoroughly push the biological species concept to its limits. I don't envy these poor souls, ... but as a clarification, the American Ornithological Society didn't technically exist until the end of 2016--when the American Ornithologists' Union and the Cooper Ornithological Society formalized their merger--so the author would have been more correct to name the American Ornithologists' Union, the organization that existed during the cited timeframe.
Honestly this argument doesn't impress me enough to call it "high-drama." The dispute about hyphens was a bit silly, but otherwise the conflict seems par for the course being an academic field.
> Some ornithologists have very strong feelings about hyphens.
Does this article ironically use as many hyphens as possible for comic relief?